Tag: Henryk Sienkiewicz

Review 2712: The Teutonic Knights

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I don’t really remember what led me to read With Fire and Sword years ago. It is the first book of a trilogy by Henryk Sienkiewicz, a writer of historical fiction and Nobel Prize winner who was publishing around the turn of the 20th century. While I was reading that book, a friend who was born of Polish parents in England just after World War II told me that Sienkiewicz’s books were the books of her childhood, although they are certainly meant also for adults.

I found With Fire and Sword to be exciting and interesting and went on to read the whole trilogy, although my blog just has the review I wrote for Nancy Pearl‘s blog about the first book. And then just recently I came across a used copy of Sienkiewicz’s The Teutonic Knights, which he considered to be his best book.

You might think that a book entitled The Teutonic Knights would have them as heroes, but you would be wrong. In fact, although Sienkiewicz’s portrayal is more nuanced, many of them are quite dastardly.

The novel is set 150 years before With Fire and Sword, beginning in 1399. The two main characters, the knight Macko of Bodaniec and his young nephew and squire Zbyszko are returning from war in Lithuania against the Teutonic knights. The knights were invited into the Baltic area many years before to keep the Prussians in line, but since then they have expanded to an order with incredible power and have been making incursions on the neighboring areas of Poland and Lithuania, using as an excuse conversion to Christianity. The only problem with this is that Poland is already Christian and Lithuania has been converted as a result of the marriage of the Lithuanian King Jagiello with the Polish Queen Regnant Jadwiga. Teutonic knights who are beginning to see a loss of their purpose have been refusing to convert their neighbors, preferring to enslave them and take their property.

Macko and Zbyszko have stopped at an inn when likewise the entourage of Duchess Anna Danuto stops for a rest on the way to the royal birth of King Jagiello and Queen Jadwiga’s first child. In her train is a beautiful young girl, still a child at 12, Janusia, the daughter of Count Jurand of Spychow, a hated enemy of the Teutonic knights, who killed her mother. Young Zbyszko is so taken with her that he makes her a knightly vow to present her with three peacock feathers that Teutonic knights wear in their helmets, which means he has to fight them.

Macko and Zbyszko are invited to accompany the duchess, and as they approach Cracow, Zbyszko sees a knight wearing peacock feathers. Thinking God has answered his prayer to meet his vow, he dashes at the knight and is only stopped when a Polish knight breaks his lance, because the man is Kuno Lichtenstein, an envoy to the king. Attacking an envoy is punishable by death.

So, Zbyszko is imprisoned while various important people try to get him off, pleading his extreme youth and impetuosity. But Lichtenstein insists on his punishment, and King Jagiello feels he has no other option.

On the day of the execution, an old custom is invoked. Janusia throws her veil over Zbyszko and claims him as hers. This saves his life and engages them to be married.

Macko and Zbyszko finally make it home to Bogdaniec, which was destroyed before they left and their entire family killed. Zbyszko is only returning temporarily, intending to go meet his vow, while Macko has now enough spoils from war to begin returning the estate to prosperity. But now we meet Jagienka, the neighboring damsel, who is healthy and beautiful and can use a crossbow or kill a bear with the best of them. She was Zbyszko’s childhood friend, and now she falls in love with him. This made me very curious about what would happen, as Zbyszko is also attracted to her.

And I’m not going to say much more except that this novel, although 780 pages long, rattles along at a pretty good clip and features kidnappings, knightly deeds, dastardly acts, fights unto death, and climaxes with an enormous, exciting battle. In amongst the action, Sienkiewicz shows a great deal of knowledge about Medieval history, dress, and customs.

This is another page turner, and I have already put another book by Sienkiewicz on my next Classics Club List.

P. S. Sienkiewicz is most well-known for Quo Vadis, his novel about Christianity in Ancient Rome. This is just my opinion, but I think his Polish novels are a lot better.

Related Posts

With Fire and Sword

Quo Vadis

The Scottish Chiefs

Day 147: Quo Vadis

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Cover for Quo VadisI picked up Quo Vadis because I so much enjoyed Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Polish history trilogy, as you know if you read my review of With Fire and Sword. This novel is about a young Roman patrician, Vinicius, who falls in love with Ligia,  a Christian, in the time of Nero’s rule. Sienkiewicz did extensive research on the period to get the details right.

About half of the book is about Vinicius’s pursuit of Ligia, first through ruthless means, including kidnapping (presumably pagan patricians have no morals), and later through conversion to Christianity. I was frankly uninterested in either Vinicius or Ligia, who are cardboard characters, and I couldn’t care less about whether they got together.

The last half of the book is about the burning of Rome and the persecution of the Christians. It features the last days of St. Paul.  The pace picks up a little here, but overall the novel is marred by its focus on extolling Christianity. All of the Christians are noble, and most of the other characters are not. Sienkiewicz was a devout Catholic, as is obvious from a few scenes in all his books, and I can only think that the added emphasis on this aspect in this particular novel gets in the way of the book’s effectiveness, at least as viewed by a modern audience.

I know that Quo Vadis was extremely popular in its time (it was published in 1896) and contributed toward Sienkiewicz winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. I also know that Sienkiewicz was capable of creating more interesting characters and writing more exciting scenes. Perhaps the times have just changed too much since this book was written for it to appeal to a wide audience now.

Day 51: With Fire and Sword

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Cover for With Fire and SwordBest Book of Week 11!

Two years ago I read an exciting trilogy of Polish novels written in the 19th Century by Henryk Sienkiewicz, a Nobel prize winner for lifetime achievement in writing epic literature. The books were wildly popular for about 50 years, and Polish friends of mine tell me that they were their childhood reading. My review of the trilogy was published on Nancy Pearl’s blog (the librarian who has her own action figure), and I wrote to her awhile back asking if I could republish it here. She did not respond, so without further ado, I am going to write another review of the first book, With Fire and Sword. I will of course crib from my original review. The three books are stand-alone but with recurring characters, so you can read just one without missing important plot points.

It is 1647, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is having some trouble—there are rumblings of rebellion among the Cossacks, who are a major force in the Polish army. Yan Skshetuski is a young Polish officer in the hussars of the Ukrainian Prince Yeremi Vishnovyetski. Prince Yeremi sends him on a mission as an emissary to Bohdan Hmyelnitzki, the leader of the Cossack rebellion. Yan has just become engaged to the beautiful Helen, but duty calls, so he makes his way through down the river to where the Cossacks are gathering.

Yan has been sent too late, though, for the rebellion has already started when he arrives, and he is made a prisoner. He escapes with difficulty and makes his way through the war-torn landscape, all the time worrying about Helen.

The political situation in Poland is very unstable, so no one comes to Prince Yeremi’s aid as he is attacked by hoards of Cossacks from the southeast. Even though Helen has been kidnapped by the wild Cossack Bohun, Yan cannot take time to look for her because he is embroiled in another mission for the Prince. So, his friends, the fat buffoon Pan Zagloba, the lovelorn knight and master swordsman Michal Volodyovski, and the gentle Lithuanian giant Longinus Podbipyenta decide to help Yan by rescuing Helen themselves.

This novel is all adventure and romance, and it is truly exciting. Along the way, you learn something about 17th century Polish history.

If you are interested in reading the book, you may have  a hard time finding it (although I see it is available in a print-on-demand basis). It is also available in several translations, about which there is some debate. The original translation by Curtin is said to be truer to the book, but I took a look at it, and it is also fairly badly written. The translation that I read by Kuniczak takes some liberties with the structure of the novel, but is eminently readable, if you can find it. The cover picture at the beginning of the article is from the edition that I read.